Untwisting the twistor superstring

TL;DR

This paper extends the twistor superstring framework off-shell by generalizing Penrose twistors to include spacetime coordinates, revealing it as a tensionless limit of a QCD-like superstring, thus advancing understanding of N=4 super Yang-Mills theory.

Contribution

It introduces a novel off-shell formulation of the twistor superstring using Atiyah-Drinfel'd-Hitchin-Manin twistors, connecting it to a tensionless QCD-like superstring.

Findings

Generalization of twistors to include spacetime coordinates.

Identification of the string as a tensionless limit of a QCD-like superstring.

Enhanced understanding of off-shell formulations in superstring theory.

Abstract

The twistor superstring, which describes N=4 super Yang-Mills trees, is taken off-shell (for loops) by generalizing Penrose twistors (which describe on-shell momenta) to Atiyah-Drinfel'd-Hitchin-Manin twistors (which include the usual spacetime coordinates). The resulting string is then shown to be the tensionless limit of a Quantum ChromoDynamics-like superstring.